WEST CHESTER – A Common Pleas Court jury hearing the homicide case against a Delaware County man charged with shooting a restaurant worker in Phoenixville will be allowed to hear testimony about the defendant’s alleged plan to break out of Chester County Prison at gunpoint.

On Friday, President Judge James P. MacElree II, who is presiding over the murder case involving three defendants accused of the 2011 shooting, said that the prosecution could use evidence of the plan, even though the defendant has not been convicted of the crime.

Testimony that Saleem Williams, the alleged gunman in the shooting, and another inmate facing murder charges, planned to break out of the prison last year could show the jury that Williams knew he was responsible for the shooting and wanted to flee the prosecution – so-called “consciousness-of-guilt” evidence.

The trial of William, 21, of Sharon Hill, is scheduled to begin with jury selection Monday in MacElree’s courtroom. The trial is expected to last through the week.

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Deputy District Attorney Peter Hobart, who is leading the prosecution against Williams, indicated that he intended to present witnesses that would testify abut William’s daring escape plan. Assistant Public Defender Loreen Kemps, who is representing Williams, objected to the proposed testimony, saying that her client was in jail on other charges as well as the Phoenixville murder; the plan, if prove, could be tied to those crimes, not the murder, she indicated.

But MacElree, inquiring on the nature of the other charges, noted that none carried with them the possible life sentence that faces Williams. Thus, any escape would be more directly tied to that possible punishment than any other, he said in allowing the testimony.

Williams and another man, Stephen Alan Reidler, 25, of Linfield, as well as Monique Robinson, 19, a former high school senior, are charged with first, second, and third-degree murder in the Sept. 14, 2011 death of 23-year-old Selvin Memerto Lopez-Maurico, a Guatemalan native who worked at a Wendy’s restaurant in Royersford, and was a member of the growing Latino community in Phoenixville at the time.

Lopez-Maurico was returning to his home in the borough around 12:45 a.m. when he was accosted by the trio in the 100 block of Prospect Street. They had had been smoking marijuana and had left the apartment of a Phoenixville woman “on a mission” to find and rob a drug dealer named “D,” according to authorities. Instead, they focused on Lopez-Maurico, who was carrying a backpack they believed held cash or valuables.

They snatched the backpack, and in an ensuing struggle over it, Williams allegedly shot Lopez-Maurico once in the abdomen. He died shortly afterwards at Phoenixville Hospital.

The backpack contained some Wendy’s takeout food, uniform items, an Lopez-Maurico’s paycheck, but no cash.

Williams and Reidler were arrested shortly after the shooting. Robinson remained at large for several months until turning herself in 2012. All three are being held without bail in county prison.

After his arrest, Williams told a Chester County detective that the incident that led to the shooting of Lopez-Mauricio began as a physical confrontation. Although Williams was unclear about the confrontation, he said he “struck the victim in the face,” McGinnis said, adding that the victim fell to the ground, got back up and was struck a second time by Williams. “With a closed fist both times,” Detective Sgt. Michael McGinnis testified at a preliminary hearing.

After punching the victim in the face, Williams told police, “he was handed a semi-automatic handgun by Monique Robinson,” McGinnis testified. “She said ‘shoot him,’” and Williams fired the weapon.

In December, county District Attorney Thomas Hogan announced that investigators and correctional officials at the prison had uncovered a plot by Williams and another man, Shymek Hinson of Lancaster County, who was facing murder charges in a separate case, and their girlfriends’ to break out of the facility and make their way to Mexico.

The group’s plan was as daring as it was dangerous, officials said. While the inmates waited inside, the women spent their time on the outside researching possible ways to break through the visiting area’s security glass. At Hynson and Williams’ direction, they experimented with the ceramic portions of automotive spark plugs, center punches, and a hammer, searching for a combination capable of breaking in, or out, of a maximum security area.

They also looked into ways of purchasing a handgun that could be handed off to Hynson and Williams, who would then attempt to shoot their way out of the prison.

“This would have been a bloodbath,” Hogan said, adding that the plot would likely have lead to the death of correctional officers or the four involved.